Jazrael gave Rhydian a guilty smile as he commented on her refraining from drinking anything for the rest of the trials. ”I mean, at least we will know if the wine is safe or not,” she said, gesturing to the bottle that still had more in it. She had been rather startled when he dropped his own glass, with it shattering over the floor, but when they second half of the ruby had revealed itself and they went through the process of connecting them and getting them put into the door, it seemed to make a little bit of sense.
Upon further evaluation, however, her elation that they had figured it out so quickly disappeared. It wasn’t going to be nearly that simple, not as they counted the four additional empty space. Of course, it was going to be some sort of puzzle – but it seemed, so far at least, that this wasn’t going to necessarily be a deadly puzzle as the last two had been. Perhaps this time it was more about working together and logic than the ability to save one another.
She frowned, looking at Rhydian as he made his way over to the bed. Her mind did drift somewhere else for a moment, seeing him near the beautifully decorated canopied bed, but her cheeks reddened quickly and she pulled her brain out of that particular path, back to the task at hand. When he beckoned her over, she walked towards him. ”Is that… panther?” she said, standing next to him and reaching out to run her hand along the soft fur of the pelt that covered the bed. She let out a little laugh. ”Like that time we were in Sahel and we had to run from the mother panther we made angry,” she said. ”Funny.” She then realized, however, that he hadn’t called her over to look at the panther pelt, but rather the intricacies of the carvings.
She leaned towards the post nearest to her, looking at it more closely. ”Oh this is very beautiful,” she said, running her hand across the carvings. ”Look, it’s got snowflakes, and snakes… and dragons… and that’s the Nightshade Wolf… that’s the symbol of Inferos,” she said, tilting her head to the side, sounding a little confused by the last one in particular. ”Why would that be on here?” she asked, continuing to look at the carvings. ”Wait… is that an ostrich?” she said, sounding even more perplexed. Suddenly, she gasped, her lips forming the shape of an ‘o’ and she looked at Rhydian. ”It’s about us!” she said.
”Look,” she said, pointing more things out. ”The snowflakes. When we were in Itjivut, it was snowing, everything was ice and snow,” she began explaining. ”If that was it, I mean… maybe it wouldn’t seem so obvious but look,” she said, her finger now tracing over one of the snakes. ”Remember when we were leaving Sahel, after we found the cinnamon we had gone for… and you protected me from that snake that was going to strike?” she said, her eyes lighting up somewhat.
”And I mean, look. It’s a dragon, and well….” she said, gesturing vaguely towards Rhydian. ”And that, that’s the symbol for Inferos. I was created in Inferos,” she continued, her voice sounding a little more excited now. ”And, well, I think that ostrich might be the reason we met,” she added with a little laugh. There were other symbols she hadn’t mentioned, but it was clear enough to her that it had to be about them. ”The problem, though… if it’s about us, what does it mean? Obviously we’re supposed to place something in those compartments,” she said, gesturing towards the door. ”But the question is… what?” she asked, tilting her head to one side, and letting out a bit of an exasperated sigh.
As she sighed, she fell backwards onto the bed, flopping down to stare at the canopy. As she did so, her head connected with something hard underneath the bedding. ”Ouch!” she said, sitting up and rubbing at the back of her head. ”What the hell was that?” she said, feeling around at the bedding to see if she could figure out what was underneath it. ”Hang on, that feels like…” she said, crawling up the bed on all fours. She grabbed the blankets and tore them back, disappearing beneath them.
When she reappeared, her hair was a complete mess from tousling around under the linens, and she had a flask grasped in her hand. ”It’s a flask,” she said, staring at it, sitting on the bed now that she had messed up the sheets. ”But it’s… my flask,” she said, sounding a bit confused. ”Not like the same as mine, it is mine,” she said, her fingers running across the worn down carvings and scratches in it. She shook it a bit, hearing the liquid sloshing around inside. With a shrug, she unscrewed the top and took a sniff, letting out a laugh. ”I know you said not to drink anything else but…” she began, and took a quick pull off the flask. She laughed even harder when she was done.
She held it out to Rhydian for him to take a drink, and when he did she smiled. ”Cinnamon whiskey,” she said, her grin broadening. ”I bet…” she said, trailing off. She jumped up from the bed with the flask in her hands and walked over to the door, placing it in one of the compartments. Sure enough, the compartment glowed, placing the flask into some kind of stasis. Three remained.
”That’s it,” she said, walking over to him. ”There’s got to be three other things in this room that go into those compartments, and I’d bet my soul – if I had one, that is – that those three other things have something to do with us as well…” she said, looking at him to see if he would have a suggestion as to what they could check next, or what the next possible item could be. Her eyes found the bookshelf. All of the books had very elegant spines with titles on them, easy to read. ”I wonder if maybe one of those books might be helpful, maybe another clue?” she said. After all, they weren’t going to find all of the items with sheer dumb luck as she had with the flask.
